What was your summer of love?

Love.  It’s practically the theme of Summer, isn’t it?  Right behind pool parties, beach bonfires, house parties, and Summer nose jobs (come on, you had to know a few girls who came back in the Fall with new noses).  I always went into the Summers of my teen years hoping to snag an easy breezy May-December romance, something short term with a cute surfer boy from California who randomly chose to stay with a friend for a summer of awesome in Utah Valley.

*AHEM*

A girl can dream.  It never happened but I was never discouraged by that fact.  Every Summer I just knew, just KNEW this Summer would be the one.  I wasted a lot of time thinking about boys.

I had boyfriends all through high school and remember distinctly my first love, a September – June romance (waste of time girls, don’t follow in my footsteps!  just study and get good grades and go to college!  the men’s volleyball team is EVERYTHING you hope they will be!)   The ending of that relationship was so tragic, so painful.  We had a great run all through my Freshman year, going to all the dances and house parties together, holding hands and kissing under the Christmas dance mistletoe.  I really did love him, and I feel a tiny twinge in my heart when I think about those years.  He got a 6-rose corsage for me for prom (yes, I went to prom when I was 14, I was an early bloomer) and boated together listening to Bob Marley during a camping trip with a group of friends the weekend before we broke up.

Marley is perfect boating music, just FYI.

I was a Freshman, he was an older man, (a 15-year-old Sophomore) and  I can report the genuine pain I felt when we broke up at the beginning of the Summer before my Sophomore year in high school. He ended up with an older woman by September.  She was probably 16 and had a car.

I’d post a picture of us from prom, but he’s in social media and I don’t want to embarrass him or his cute wife and family.  (neither of the guys above is him, but they were nice guys nonetheless)

I don’t want you to think I’m belittling Summer love at all, it’s a serious thing.  There are real lessons to be learned from the early relationships of youth.  Every Summer, even the short period of three months, kids came back to school in the Fall a little bit transformed.  There was always the guy who hit puberty somewhere in July and was totally hot by lacrosse tryouts in the Fall, or the girl who bloomed, had braces taken off, switched from glasses to contacts and was finally wearing a real bra come September.

Summer can be transformative.

So what was YOUR Summer of love?  Do you remember?  If you didn’t have a first Summer love, did you have a transformative Summer?  I clearly had a few.  Or five.  So I can’t wait to go see the new movie THE WAY, WAY BACK coming out in a few days (July 5th), all about an adorable kid who goes on a forced Summer vacation with his mom and her douchebag boyfriend played by Steve Carell (am I allowed to say that on this family blog?  oh well, I just did).  The poor thing is in one of the more awkward teenage years of his life, waiting to come into his own with his mother’s overbearing boyfriend demeaning him while he’s at it.

I can so relate.

Minus the weird boyfriend part.  There were plenty of dads in my life (not my own) who filled the part though.

It makes me shiver just thinking about it.  Teenagers of the world, listen up:  IT GETS BETTER, SO MUCH BETTER.

Anyway, the movie looks amazing.  It’s brought to you by the same people who put together Juno and Little Miss Sunshine, and the award-winning screenwriters behind The Descendants (another fantastic coming-of-age movie).  I can’t wait to see it, sitting comfortably on this side of adulthood, knowing how amazing life can be once you get past the mandatory weird stuff.

It gives me shivery teenage angst just remembering.

Check out the official website of The Way Way Back

• Like The Way Way Back on Facebook
• Follow @TheWayWayBack on Twitter #TheWayWayBack
• THE WAY, WAY BACK – in Theaters July 5
• Written and directed by: Nat Faxon & Jim Rash (co-writers, The Descendants)
• Produced by: Kevin J. Walsh, Tom Rice
• Starring: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, AnnaSophia Robb, Sam Rockwell, Maya Rudolph and Liam James, Amanda Peet and Rob Corddry

*Sponsored by Fox Searchlight Pictures*

Please, now that I’ve shared two pictures of me at prom, wearing the same dress two years in a row, with braces no less, please share a snippet of your teen angst.  I need to know I’m not alone in the wistful love department.

Allison

Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!